Tag Archives: flash fiction

The Little Green Book: Extraterrestrial Survival on Earth or Staying Alive and Well on an Institutionally Biased Planet

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

THE LITTLE GREEN BOOK Part 1

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Thank you for purchasing Rin Vagor’s The Little Green Book: Extraterrestrial Survival on Earth or Staying Alive and Well on an Institutionally Biased Planet. This datafile is intended for off-worlders who wish to face the harsh reality of living and dying on planet earth, those who do not want to blind their ocular senses, or cover their auditory faculties, or feel that “It can’t happen to me.”

At the very beginning of the file, you will have noticed a questionnaire. For your own protection, please take a moment to fill in the fields provided. In addition to your Earth information, you should also include:

  • Homeworld Address
  • Homeworld Subspace Frequency
  • Date of Birth/Spawning/Hatching/Other
  • Name/Address/Subspace Frequency of Nearest Homeworld Relative/Friend
  • Blood Type (if applicable)
  • Allergies

***

INTRODUCTION

The tricentennial anniversary of the Roswell Incident has sped up the angst in the planetwide debate concerning beings of extraterrestrial origin and the doubtful security of their right to exist. As it now develops, the extraterrestrial is not as revered as was the case in the days before first contact. Pictures of heroics by Roo’Lau, the Venusian, rising from beneath a ton of human football players after being tackled across the goal line; Miiinrt U, from Antares, dragging his burden of a human baseball team through a World Series; Poo Nebula, native Tenaxian, boxing her way to heavyweight championship; Ylaan, of Nentok IV, who with no arm appendages of any sort, defeated earthly golfers at their own game. They sometimes tempt us to forget how vulnerable the extraterrestrial really is on earth, the so-called shining gem of the cosmos.

We tend to forget the human police officer who sucked thirteen-year-old Jum Bokuur up in a shop vacuum cleaner, because all the officer saw was a purple, oozing mass, unaware that it was the normal, healthy and quite non-lethal Vespurian form. And now, Rin Vagor has invented a survival advisory for extraterrestrials. If her prescriptions succeed, she is entitled to a Nobel Prize in a new category, Extraterrestrial Survival.

It is amazing how little earth’s extremist ecology has changed since the time over fifty years ago when Na Ters confronted the United Nations with his documented book, We Come In Peace. Its graphic depiction of the wholesale slaughter of off-worlders by the human governments illustrated the mortal consequences of an endangered species. The changes have been semantic. It is now benign neglect that human society likes to emphasize. The suicides, murders, drug deaths and other rebuffs are somehow made more subtle and thus less like the government autopsies. Is the rhetoric less cruel? I think not. The law itself, the imagined protector of the defenseless and the downtrodden, bears the blame for extraterrestrial jeopardy.

  • Mr. Justice Lance Hasbrouck was asked by a Martian defendant to appoint counsel for him. The justice, speculating that there was a companion of the defendant who had not been found, said, “There’s another greenie in the woodpile.” Justice Hasbrouck is a devout Roman Catholic.
  • Mr. Justice Donald Franklin, sentencing a human defendant, was asked by counsel to place the man on probation, assuring the justice that his client could be rehabilitated. The judge practically snarled, “How’s he going to be rehabilitated, living in sin with that ET woman?” He posed that question three times in rapid succession.
  • Mr. Justice Thompson advised two Titanide defendants that they would not know the difference between a good lawyer and a quasar.
  • An Andromedan New York University student was pushed into an open manhole for kissing a human male classmate, as they stood in the street near the university. Upon contact with the raw sewage, the student evaporated into an odorless yellow mist.
  • An unemployed Tilosian, faced with a child support order, was told by a human judge to “phone home and have them beam you some money.”
  • A Betelgesan was told by a human judge to stop having mutant children or face castration.

And so it goes, with the scalpel of human society aimed at extraterrestrial testicles.

Extraterrestrials may not try to be heroic and hope to survive. The government use off-worlders for target practice and they seldom miss. The great wonder is that Earthbound extraterrestrials have not practiced undercover guerrilla warfare after the fashion of the Terran-based radical terrorist organizations. Outnumbered and outgunned, any other effort to get even or to avenge off-worlder honor would invite disaster.

The Little Green Book is a reminder of the Survival Commandments we must honor.

Read and remember.

-Speaker Kash Nupil, Proud Plexan

©2014 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

The Hooded Redahlia

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

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“Alas for those girls who’ve refused the truth: The sweetest tongue has the sharpest tooth.” ― Jack Zipes, Little Red Riding Hood and Other Classic French Fairy Tales

The various herbs and tinctures had been gathered from the garden and the cooking cupboard, carefully measured and mixed into the secret family recipe that had been handed down in their family from generation to generation and when all the baking was completed, Mother asked her only daughter, Redalhia, to take the specially prepared galette and pot of cream to Grandmother’s forest cottage.

Redalhia had not quite felt up for the journey as her body was undergoing a significant change and she found herself trapped betwixt and between being the girl she once was and the woman she would one day become. But she loved Grandmother so very dearly, enough in fact that she put her own cares aside, happily gathered the food into a wicker basket and donning her crimson hooded cloak before setting off for the forest.

How could she have done any less? Her grandmother had recently fallen ill and the severity of her malady forced her to live apart from the family in a cottage deep within the forest, for fear of passing the sickness unto anyone else.

***

The road on which Redalhia walked led to the tree line of the forest where it split in two and at that fork stood the changeling-wolf known in the village as Bzou. The shapeshifter’s senses were sharper than that of a human so he smelled the nectar of her menses long before she would have spotted him, an advantage he put to use by quickly assuming the form of a wizened man. When the blood-hooded girl grew close enough to benefit from the power of his bright smile, Bzou flashed his teeth and asked, “Excuse me, dear, where are you going?”

“To Grandmother’s house, sir,” Redalhia answered with that shy look young girls often wore, behind slightly pursed lips that teased a smile which required just a bit of coaxing.

Bzou sniffed the air, “And what, fair creature, do you carry?” but it was not the scent of the food in the basket that tempted his nostrils.

“Why, Mother’s cooking, of course. Bread and cream for Grandmother’s supper. She lives in the forest cottage.”

“And which path will you take?” Bzou asked, gesturing at both paths, one after the other. “The Path of Needles or the Path of Pins?”

Redalhia pondered this a moment. “The Path of Pins, I think, since it is the quickest.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, very. I have traveled both paths and Pins is the quickest.”

“Let us put your expertise to the test, shall we? I will take the Path of Needles, and we will see who gets there first.”

Redalhia shrugged for she knew she was right, but if the silly old man wanted to waste his time, who was she to stop him? She set off down the Path of Pins and thought it strange that he simply stood there, grinning, and watching her walk.

Bzou also knew the girl was right. Of course, the Path of Pins was quicker and she definitely would have reached the cottage first had the shapeshifter walked on two legs. But using all four? There was no way she would be faster than he. When the girl disappeared within the dense patch of trees, the wolfen shook off his human guise, trotted down the Path of Needles, and as he knew he would, reached Grandmother’s cottage first.

The cunning wolf altered his appearance to resemble the cherubic Redalhia and rapped gently on the door. When Grandmother answered, her thrill at seeing her favorite grandchild was short lived as Bzou slaughtered her, quickly and efficiently as not to leave a mess. He gnawed her flesh, lapped up her blood and ate her bones to the marrow, leaving only a small portion of flesh that he placed on a little dish in the pantry, and a bit of blood that he drained into a little bottle. Then Bzou cleaned himself, took the form of Grandmother and dressed in her cap and shawl before climbing into bed.

When Redalhia finally knocked on the door, Bzou carefully disguised his guttural voice before calling out, “Come in, my child.”

“Grandmother,” the girl beamed, removing her cloak and hanging it on the hook by the front door. “Mother sent me here with a galette and cream.”

“Put them in the pantry, child. Are you hungry and thirsty?”

“Yes, I am.”

“There is meat in the pantry for you to cook and wine beside it to drink.”

Redalhia cooked the meat and as she began to eat it, a little cat perched on the open windowsill and mewled. It must have been her imagination for she swore it sounded like the cat said, “You are eating the flesh of your grandmother!”

“Throw your shoe at that noisy cat,” said Bzou, and so the girl did.

As Redalhia washed the meat down with wine, a small bird alighted on the very same windowsill as the cat before and impossibly cried, “You are drinking the blood of your grandmother!”

“Throw your other shoe at that noisy bird,” Bzou commanded, and the girl did so.

When Redalhia finished her meal, Bzou said, “You must be exhausted from your journey, child. Take off your clothes, come to bed, and I shall warm you up.”

It was true, after the meat and drink, her head did spin slightly. There was something in the flavor of the meal, a familiarity basted in sorrow. “Where shall I put my clothing, Grandmother?”

“Throw them on the fire, child, for you won’t need them anymore.”

Normally, Redalhia would have questioned this but a sudden weariness fogged her mind. She tossed her bodice, skirt, petticoat, and stockings on the fire, and climbed into bed.

The nearness of her, the smell of her budding womanhood, caused Bzou’s concentration to wander and his guise slipped a bit.

Even through the sleepy haze, Redalhia noticed the change. Her once frail grandmother was hairier, her arms stronger, ears larger, and her teeth — those teeth were familiar but they had not belonged to her Grandmother. Where had she seen them before?

Bzou spoke in gentle tones to allay the girl’s suspicions, “My hair is to keep you warm on cold nights, my arms to hold you close, my ears to better hear your sweet voice, and my teeth…”

Sharp teeth. Sharper than any human has ever had. “The better to eat me with?” Redalhia leapt from the bed. “Bizou!”

The wolf smiled and let the disguise fall away completely. “Yes, ’tis I.”

“But where is Grandmo–” the truth slowly dawned on her. “You ate her!”

“I am afraid we share that sin, my dear. Now come and lie beside me.” Bzou patted the empty side of the bed.

The realization made Redalhia retch. “I — I feel ill…”

“Do it in the bed, my child, I do not mind.”

The girl backed out of the room, snatched her hood off the hook to hide her nakedness, staggered out the cottage door and vomited the undigested bits of her late grandmother against a plum tree.

Bzou followed her outside, shaking his canine head, “What a waste of good meat. Are you finished yet, deary, so that we may attend to our affairs?”

“My only affair is to see you dead!” the girl spat.

“You are welcomed to try after I take from you what is mine.”

Redalhia sprinted from the tree and took off down the Path of Pins.

“Ambrosia sweetened by the chase!” Bzou grinned as he darted down the Path of Needles, powerful legs carrying him to the fork in the road with a swiftness unmatched by any human. He braced himself for the girl to appear from the tree line. He would take her straight away, no more games. He waited. And waited. Until waiting turned to impatience and impatience turned to fury.

Bzou used his hind limbs and shoulders to propel himself through the Path of Pins at a full gallop until she saw the red hooded cloak crouched before a bush. He pounced–

And at first his mind was all a muddle. The cloak was in his teeth but there was no girl and he was suddenly upside down, tangled in something that bit at him. He was thankful for the sharp pain because it was enough to wrest him out of confusion. He was caught up in brambles. That clever girl draped her hood over a briar bush! Bzou concentrated on what he would do to the girl when he eventually caught her, to block out the sound of his screams as he slowly began to right himself and pull himself free of the tangle of prickly scrambling shrubs. The wetness of thick blood trickled from the rends in his flesh but he couldn’t afford to waste time nursing his wounds.

***

Redalhia had doubled back once she heard Bzou on the Path of Needles. Her first instinct was to run to the safety of her home, but she quickly realized how foolish a thought that was. She could not risk leading the wolf to her house, could not afford to lose Mother as well.

Branches and thistles and thorns and bramble tore at Redalhia’s naked flesh as she ran past the cottage and through the woods which had no path. And when she thought she could not run any further, she reached a river, swift and deep, where laundresses on both banks were hard at work.

“Help me cross,” she pleaded with them. The washerwomen took pity on the girl and spread a sheet over the water and held tightly to its ends. No sooner than when Redalhia had begun to cross the bridge of cloth, Bzou reached the river and jumped upon the sheet as well.

She too was on all fours now, scrambling to reach the other side of the river, and when the wolf was almost upon her, Redalhia dove off the sheet onto the river bank and yanked the linen from the laundresses’ hands and let it go.

Bzou’s paws clawed at the muddy river bank. looking for purchase but Redalhia kicked them away. He bobbed the surface a few times, shifting forms from wolf to the old man in the road to Redalhia herself to Grandmother and finally back to his true wolf self, desperately trying to swim against the tide but was too badly tangled in the sheet.

“Think… you have won… foolish whelp,” Bzou gasped each time his head resurfaced. “But you… tasted… the meat… you are tainted… cursed… I curse y–”

The wolfen let out one last pitiful howl before he drowned.

One of the laundresses, the elder of the group, gave Redalhia a sheet to wrap herself in and escorted her home, where she described to Mother in great detail the events of the day.

They held a funeral service for Grandmother and in a roughly hewn box they placed the bits of flesh Redalhia had been unable to digest, wrapped with an heirloom kerchief and buried it under the plum tree.

And as it often was in life, everything eventually returned to normal — with the exception of the four nights each month when the moon was at its fullest which always coincided with Redalhia’s personal cycle.

Just before her daughter’s bone structure began to realign itself, before her musculature changed and her hair grew, Mother would walk Redalhia to the forest cottage formerly occupied by Grandmother, secure her to the bed with silver, and cover the doors and windows with wolfsbane until the curse of the beast ran its course.

– Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Tiny Stories: Evaporating Destiny

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Popular belief has it that the universe is comprised of atoms. In reality, the universe is actually made up of…

While Amelia couldn’t quite put her finger on it or explain how the devil it happened, she knew her reality had somehow shifted because the air smelled wrong—not just of engine exhaust but of evaporating destiny and melting fate.

Of Air Returned

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

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i.

I burned my soul to ash but the pain paled in comparison to the terror that struck my heart like a match, anticipating her arrival and the tirade she would carry in tow. An unwarranted fear, as she was calm when she saw what I had done. Calm and nurturing. Soothing my pain with herbs and aromas, and each early morning during the hour of the wolf, she laid an ear on my back and listened as my soul mended itself.

She never spoke the words of disappointment aloud but it registered in her eyes. Although residing within my body, this wounded thing, this unwanted soul, did not belong to me. She had laid claim to it many years past, and in my despondency, I had taken liberties with her property and attempted to destroy it. Again.

ii.

The first time, I threw my soul into a sinkhole and allowed the ground to swallow it whole. I made her acquaintance when she plucked it from the soil like a tattered tuber. “I saw what you did,” she said. “And since you would so recklessly toss this precious thing away, it is no longer yours, but mine, agreed?” I nodded and she handed my soul back to me for safekeeping.

I honored our pact for a few years, caring for it within my limited capacity, but during a particularly nasty bout of depression, I tied heavy stones to my soul and pushed it off the sea wall. For a second time, she appeared, fishing my soul from the waves, and scolded me, “You are charged with protecting this thing that is mine, do you understand?” Again, I nodded. Again, I lied.

iii.

“Why do you want this worthless soul when it has been crushed by the earth? Why do you want it when it has been drowned in the sea? Why do you want it when it has been set aflame like so much tinder?” I searched long and hard yet found no answer in her silence.

iv.

During the day, when she thought me preoccupied, she secreted herself in the shadows and slept. One day I followed her into the darkness and watched her body twitch from dreaming and listened as she muttered,

One more soul, once buried deep.
One more soul, in ocean steeped.
One more soul, by fire burned.
One more soul, of air returned.

v.

Under her care, my soul grew healthier and it frightened me. I was pitilessly plagued and badgered by the phrase, One more soul, of air returned, that repeated in my mind’s ear until it turned dogged and cacophonous. But she was unaware of my inner torment, in fact, she was in an exceptionally good mood today, her voice almost a song, “I know you don’t see it, but you are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”

vi.

Today was the day. I felt it in my marrow. Something was destined to happen, something I most likely would not survive. I should have embraced this eerie premonition, for it was no secret that I did not want to continue in this manner, broken, detached, and alone. But the choice of how and when I departed this wretched life was mine to make and mine alone. So, I stalled by distracting her with trivialities. “May I have more broth? Have you seen my shoes? No, not that pair, the other ones? Can we go for a walk?” If she knew my plan, her expression never showed sign. No request was too large or small on this day. She granted them all.

vii.

We strolled along the pathway in the park that led to the duck pond, a place we visited often during my convalescence. Picked, naturally, as not to arouse suspicion as I searched for the proper diversion in order to make my escape. But I was so wrapped in my own thoughts, I failed to notice that she was walking slower than usual today. “Can we rest a moment?” she asked as we neared the benches. “I am a little short of breath.”

Her breathing became a labored and raspy thing before it hitched and became lodged in her throat. When her face went dusky blue and she slid off the park bench, I panicked. The opportunity had presented itself and there I stood like an idiot, frozen. Entangled in the decision of whose life to save, or more accurately, whose death I could live with.

There was no real choice.

viii.

Her breathing was a trembling, liquid sound as I pressed my mouth to hers and exhaled, but instead of me breathing air into her body, I felt her sucking air from my lungs, and not just air…

I tried desperately to pull away but her thin, vise-like hands clamped down on the nape of my neck and held me firm in a kiss that was collapsing me. My hold on life became dim and futile, but before I slipped away into emptiness, I noticed the oddest thing: her belly began to swell.

Every fiber of my actuality was drawn into her, and my soul, the object I had forever been so reckless with, was systematically being stripped of concern, of negativity, of identity. I fell further and further into a darkness that pressed on me from all sides. So tight, so constricted. I was still unable to breathe but the sensation was somehow different now.

At the very moment when it seemed the darkness was about to claim me for eternity, there came a burst of light so bright as to cut my eyes. Thankfully something soon blotted out the light – a face, slowly coming into focus but I knew her before I saw her. From the moment I heard her soft cooing, “You are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”

Mother.

About Of Air Returned: Delusion can be a scary thing, but it can also be wonderful at the same time. This piece was written in the early part of 1988, during a period when I swore I could do no wrong—it’s fine, you can laugh, I’ll just cringe quietly in the corner. I was heavily into both science and speculative fiction and had recently rediscovered the works of The Brothers Grimm, so I was determined to create my own collection of fairy tales for the—then—modern age.

Applying fairy tale rules, I could introduce the fantastic or the bizarre into any story with little or no explanation, and have all the characters in the tales accept everything as normal. Wishes as deus ex machina. Love as the ultimate cure-all. All the good stuff without all the fuss. Genius, right?

It would take the better part of six months for me to discover I wasn’t the groundbreaker I imagined myself to be. On the plus side, I followed my then idol, Harlan Ellison’s advice and was able to churn one of these puppies out a day.

Of course, most of them are unreadable. This one teeters on the edge. I kinda like it and it kinda embarrasses the hell out of me, but it was one of the three Rhyan Realm tales–yeah, I created my own sub-genre name for them, what of it?–that actually saw print… after 10-some-odd rejections.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss a few minutes goodbye.

Madd Fictional presents “Unwritten Stories That Will Never See The Light of Day” (maybe)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Prodigy. Genius. Talented. Gifted. Blessed. While it’s true these words describe yours truly to a T, there are times when greatness does not come easily (no, really, it’s true) and some of the ideas that spill forth from my gray matter fall far afield of the greatness for which I am currently known (if I have to label this as sarcasm you are instructed to take a seat at the back of the class until such time as you are able to purchase a clue).

Most of these hideas (hideous ideas) are forgotten as quickly as they appear, but there are a handful, a select few, that hang around and claim squatter’s rights on mental real estate better suited to my magnum opus(es).

This post shall serve as an eviction notice, with the hope that given some minor attention, the ideas will pack their belongings and fuck the fuck off back to obscurity.

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Venusian Gender Non-Specific Martians From The Moon

The year is 1938 and the United States launches a rocketship with the secret mission of sending settlers to stake claim to Earth’s moon for America. Upon their arrival, the lunar settlers stumble upon the satellite’s indigenous lifeform, Venusian Martians (the exiled offspring which resulted from the great Venus Mars Conflict) who do not identify by gender. The settlers also learn of a Venusian Gender Non-Specific Martian plot to invade Earth and mine the planet for the most precious energy source in the galaxy… human sex chromosomes!

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Trouser Snakes On A Dame

Samantha Jackson, an asexual parking enforcement officer, is trapped in an interplanetary shuttle full of horny extraterrestrial businessmen during the rush hour commute and is forced to take on car after car of deadly, one-eyed snakes, deliberately unzipped to deflower any virgin who dares stand in their way of spacejacking the shuttle to the nearest pleasure planet!

“I am sick and tired of these masturfapping trouser snakes on this mother loving dame!”

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Pocket Rocket To The Stars

It’s 1937 and America is looking for alternative fuel and power sources. Enter female rocket scientist, Hedda DiClasse, who builds a rocketship powered by the ever elusive and once thought to be mythical female orgasm. Problems arise when Captain Manuel “All Man” Hardbody is brought aboard to pilot the vessel despite the fact he possesses too much testosterone. Can he and Dr. DiClasse put aside their differences and come together to ride that rocket into the Milky Way?

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I Was A Teenage Neanderthal Bride

Ooba wan’t going to be told whom she would marry, especially with all the potential Cro Magnon suitors running around, with their promises of a newer, better way of life. But even as she discovers the perfect homo erectus, she finds herself torn between pursuing her wondrous new life or saving her old life and her family from extinction.

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If Books Could Kill

A single mother gives her daughter a popular children’s book, only to discover that it is possessed with the soul of her recently murdered serial killer husband who’s out for revenge.

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Firstborn

A viral outbreak renders the human race infertile and in order to cheat death, the top scientists and surgeons turn to the works of Victor Frankenstein until generations later, the world is nothing but frankenpeople, but when a frankenwoman gets pregnant and gives birth, the planet will stop at nothing to dissect the newborn.

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Gym Rat Blue

Five unbelievably attractive rookie cops who look as though they spend every waking moment at the gym, have just graduated from the police academy in a nondescript city that could be New York but is probably somewhere in Canada. Now that training’s over and the rough and tumble life of a beat cop begins, they must learn not only to deal with their duties as police officers, but also deal with the problems and expectation of their severely dysfunctional families and friends, while maintaining their unnatural good looks, even after being shot. Pose, pout, protect and serve is the name of the game at the One-Oh-Sex Precinct.

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Let Go Of My Ears, I Know What I’m Doing

We never need talk about this story or its title ever again. Sorry I even mentioned it Move along, nothing to see here.

Sally forth and be repurposing your less than stellar story ideasingly writeful.

©2014 – 2019 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Creative Commons License

Story Tweets for the Week Ending March 9th

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Lazy bastard mode is still in effect so here are more of my previous week’s Twitter story tweets. Hopefully, a new short story will be forthcoming next week.

Story Tweets for the Week Ending March 2nd

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Yes, I have returned from my glorious two weeks off but, no, I have not created a new short story so you’ll just have to cut your teeth on my past week’s story tweets.

Ugh. I used “tongue” twice in the same sentence. When will I learn to stop tweeting past my bedtime? It’s 2019…where’s the damn EDIT button, Twitter???

Story Tweets for the Week Ending February 23

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

Yep, still on vacation, so my story tweets for the past week are gonna have to hold you until I return to scratch out new short stories. Enjoy!

https://twitter.com/Madd_Fictional/status/1098434580955230209

Til next Monday, ciao for now, compadres!

-Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Story Tweets for the Week Ending February 16

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

It’s vacation time and I could have planned ahead and scheduled a couple of short stories to keep my blog parking space warm during my absence but I’m a lazy writer so what you get is a sampling of my Twitter story tweets from the past week instead.

Sorry, not sorry.

Yes, I am painfully aware of the typo.

Holler atcha next week, peeps!

-Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Tweets as Stories: There is a Letter…

Posted by Madd_Fictional on

In my sock drawer, there is a hiding space behind a row what my father calls grave socks as in one foot in the grave because they either do not have a match, are riddled with holes, threadbare at the toes and heels, or the ankle elastic has given up their hold on life. In that hiding space, there is a letter written carefully in a mixture of cursive and print. In that letter, are words, feelings, emotions, and admissions that a boy would never say directly to a girl’s face, not even on a double dog dare.

On a bicycle, there is a shy paperboy who, even though I have not responded to his first letter yet, would write me another letter, I am sure of it, reminding me of our time in the park. In that park, there is a rum cherry tree under which I made a promise to the shy paperboy of seven minutes in heaven.

In my closet, on an afternoon when no one is home, I make good on my promise with the shy paperboy. In the dark, my mind is filled with a sort of scary, sort of awkward fireworks that I can see but cannot hear because my heart is pounding so fast and loud that I swear the shy paperboy can hear it.

In that kiss, there is something I do not have words for, something that drops my guard completely, makes me feel truly comfortable with the shy paperboy and I am desperate to let him see me in my entirety.

In that feeling, I am crying harder than I ever have before, harder than I even knew I could, crying past the point when I run out of tears. In the tearless sobs, my breath is hitching and I realize that this is most likely the happiest and most terrified I will ever feel in my life.

In the silence, after the kiss and the tears, the overwhelming and slightly painful joy is replaced by the sound of a key sliding into a lock, the tumbling of a bolt and the jangling of a woman’s metal bracelets.

In the house, there is a mother who will tan not only my hide but the shy paperboy’s as well, if she ever finds out I have company without permission and especially if my room door is closed and that company is a boy who is in my room.

In the window, there is a scared paperboy climbing out and mumbling a prayer that he does not hurt himself or makes a sound when he drops a story to the ground below.

In my mother’s eyes, there is suspicion when she opens the door and enters my room, catching me rushing to shut the window, cutting off the cool breeze even though I am dripping with sweat.

In my mind, there is a list of excuses that I cannot find in the clutter of thoughts so I just stare at my mother as innocently as walks past me and opens the window, about to stick her head out to inspect the backyard.

In my mouth, there is a fib, “A wasp!” I say just a bit too forcefully and I build on it by telling her there was a wasp in the room so I closed the door to stop it from getting into the rest of the house and I managed to chase it out and shut the window behind it.

In the moments that tick by too slowly, my mother glances at the window again, then at my face before turning to leave but as she reaches the door, she stops and says, “You should probably find a better hiding place. Your father’s been talking about throwing out your grave socks and you wouldn’t want him finding that letter, would you? And the no company without permission rule stands no matter how sweet a boy’s words are or how much your heart aches for him, understood?”

In the end, I realize I am not as clever as I think I am, nor is my mother that foolish or unreasonable and I discover a newfound respect for her as I answer, “Yes, ma’am.”

About There is a Letter: The story began life as this sneaky tweet for a Wednesday Twitter hashtag game called 1LineWed (hosted by Kiss of Death @RWAKissofDeath) that I banged out while I was working my day job:

©2019 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys